The Second Foundation was the story that was the 3rd such published book in the Foundation Trilogy (although some later books were introduced that told the story before this book). The Second Foundation was published more than 50 years back (to be precise 55 years back, in 1953 by Gnome Press). The book was the sequel to the book - Foundation and Empire. I would not treat the book purely as science fiction, given that science is not the central theme of the book. The book weaves science in and out, but the book is all about human emotions, including the strongest ones, ambition. In the previous 2 books (Foundation & Foundation and Empire), Asimov had only given trace descriptions of the Second Foundation. It is this book which describes the Second Foundation in some detail, but not enough (more detail is revealed in the book, Foundation’s Edge).

The actual novel is the combination of 2 separate stories separated by 55 years. Both are about searches for the Second Foundation, Search by the Mule, and Search by the Foundation. The Second Foundation was the Foundation set up by Hari Seldon to be composed of mentalists (people who can control and influence human thought) (although the initial novels never really clear as to how people came to develop these powers - it was only once you read the later novels such as ‘Prelude to the Foundation’ that reveal as to how all of this was a great plan).
The Mule had conquered everything that was visible, including the great Foundation itself (from its base on Terminus). He was searching for the Second Foundation, since they, the shadowy society of mentalists, were the only one who could break his plan (and he had started finding that some of his important people were getting modified, and could only be possible by the Second Foundation). It was important for him to find the Second Foundation, and it was this story that details his search, and how eventually, the First Speaker of the Second Foundation fulfills his duty by modifying the Mule to make him not care anymore about the Second Foundation (and eventually the Mule would die a natural death).
The Second Story, 55 years after the death of the Mule, was about the Foundation (the First one, the one that grew based on physical power) wanting to find the Second Foundation and destroy it. With the encounter with the Mule, it was clear that the Second Foundation existed. The Foundation and its leader could not stand to have the prospect of anybody but them being the center of the next Empire, and if the Second Foundation consisting of mentalics remained at large, the Foundation would never be the dominant power. And hence, driven by ambition, the search for the Second Foundation through the use of technology - this technology enables them to determine the way to disrupt the use of the telepathic powers of the Second Foundation and to cause harsh mental pain to any such agent of the Second Foundation. They eventually find agents on the same planet, Terminus (since the Second Foundation is at star’s end, and circling the galaxy comes back to the original point).
However, have they really ended the Second Foundation ?

The world outside our planet has always fascinated us, even when we could not see what is out there. In addition to a quest with trying to finding out more of the mysteries of the Universe, there was always a few of the unknown. Suppose there is an alien race on other worlds, there is no reason to believe that they would be friendly towards humanity (in fact, given the ferocity with which humanity fights each other, it is very easy to assume that another race would find it easy to be hostile to us). And of course, if it is a race older than us, they would have a more advanced technology, more advanced weapons, and may be easily able to overcome us (and destroy humanity).
There has been a lot of movie and books coverage of the prospects of an alien invasion of earth, with movies such as Independence Day, Mars Attacks being the most recent. However, this book (by the futuristic science fiction writer HG Wells) is probable the earliest book that deals with this subject (leaving aside the tales of the pyramids and other such structures having been built by aliens), and also details a believable reason for why the attacks by a more technologically superior race would have stopped. In addition, Mars had already been believed to be the center of an advanced race when the Italian astronomer, Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli (1835-1910), described some of the natural phenomenon existing on Mars, and these were wrongly translated into English as ‘there are canals on Mars’.

This novel had remained popular, but what made this novel extraordinarily popular, and at the same scared a large section of the population, was a radio broadcast on Halloween (October 30, 1938) by Orson Wells, where he made listeners panic, believing that the news stories of an actual invasion were true.
The book is about the proposed landing of a Martian ship (cylinder) in the town of Woking, England near the end of the 19th century. This is preceded by the observations of a series of explosions on Mars and the launching of a meteor towards Earth. This meteor lands on Earth, and strange looking Martians start emerging from the cylinder and start building up machinery. Approaching humans are killed by a death ray (a heat ray). The machine that the Martians have been building is a 3-legged fighting machine that uses the heat ray and also uses poison gas in the form of a black smoke.
Attacks on these army of attacking Martians are easily repelled, and they are soon taking control of vast sections of South England, with the populations of those areas evacuating. The narrator, the one who is explaining what is happening (and having been separated from his wife in one of the confusing moments during the attack) is able to watch the Martians from close quarters, including their use of human blood as food. And then suddenly the Martians vanish - they have been felled by the pathogens (bacteria / virus) found on Earth, and to which they are not immune.

Why the title of ‘A successful failure’ ? Well, because the third manned mission to the moon, part of the Project Apollo was a failure to make it to its target, but managed to be successful in a return journey back to Earth. There had been 2 successful moon landings so far, a major success for the US in its space program. The 3rd such mission did not have the same amount of public involvement, and yet turned out to be an extremely riveting adventure, because of the drama involved. An explosion in space, power failure, less air, and the consequent on-the-spot-engineering to make things work out and get the 3 astronauts back to Earth made for an excellent story waiting to be told. The incredible thing was that it took so long to be made into a movie, released at a time when the current generation would not know or remember about this incident.

The whole incident was turned into a 1995 movie starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris; the movie was in turn based on a book called ‘Lost Moon’ by Jim Lovell (the actual commander of the 1970 Apollo 13 mission; the other members of the mission were Command Module pilot John L. “Jack” Swigert, and Lunar Module pilot Fred W. Haise) and Jeffrey Kluger. The movie was praised by critics for a good dramatization of an epic episode during the space race while being accurate to the actual events and the scientific facts. Some of the scenes involving weightlessness were filmed abroad the NASA flight that is actually used to mimic microgravity for a brief periods of time, the KC-135 aircraft called the ‘Vomit Comet’.
The movie starts out with details of the build-up to the Apollo program, covers the first landing on the moon, and then moves onto the actual planning of the crew for the Apollo 13 mission, including the fact that the crew was not originally planned for this mission. The movie then covers the lift-off into space with a slight problem, and soon moves into the actual disaster, with the explosion, leaking of the oxygen tanks, cancellation of the lunar landing mission, and then the entire drama of the magnificent engineering feats involved in working out how to get the crew back from deep space (where there is no possibility of a rescue mission).
The movie was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won 2 awards (but none of the acting and other high profile awards):
* Won - Best Film Editing — Mike Hill, Daniel Hanley
* Won - Best Sound Mixing — Rick Dior, Steve Pederson, Scott Millan, David MacMilan
* Nominated - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role — Ed Harris
* Nominated - Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role — Kathleen Quinlan
* Nominated - Best Achievement in Art Direction — Michael Corenblith, Merideth Boswell
* Nominated - Best Original Score — James Horner
* Nominated - Best Picture — Brian Grazer
* Nominated - Best Visual Effects — Robert Legato, Michael Kanfer, Leslie Ekker, Matt Sweeney
* Nominated - Best Adapted Screenplay — William Broyles Jr., Al Reinert

Isaac Asimov was one of the pioneers of the field of writing about robotics, and was most famous for his creation of the Three Laws of Robotics:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
These seem simple enough, but as with laws for humans, there can be many interpretations and conflicts that can arise out of using these laws. ‘The Rest of the Robots’ is a set of 8 short stories that all deal with robots, and many of them also have references to these laws as well as situations arising out of problems with the use of these laws. I found the collection to be very readable and interesting, and considering that most of these stories are more than 50 years old, not dated in any way. We have not had the development of humanoid robotics to the extent that Asimov had written about, so many of these are stories that we will still need to worry about.

The collection was released in 1964, and hence you can consider the book to be a very old book indeed, and yet when I was browsing through some Asimov books on an online bookshop, I found it easily available, which means there is a regular demand for it. The book starts out with a foreword by Asimov in which he explains about how books used to be about robots, they were seen as being part of the Frankenstein complex, where man created robots, and robots would destroy man, and this happened again and again. Asimov chose to move away from this concept, and wrote stories with far more complexity and depth.
The book has 8 short stories:
1. Robot AL-76 goes astray: A story in which a robot bound for the moon somehow manages to get loose on earth, and has to try and figure out its surroundings, especially when it has been fed only information about the moon. It creates a great new machine, but then destroys it when ordered to in mistake. A comedy.
2. Victory international: About projecting the power of robots, especially those constructed with a great deal of care to make extra-strong so that they can impress the ferocious inhabitants of Jupiter.
3. First law: About an exception when the power of the First Law cannot suppress the maternal instincts of a robot, and the robot is willing to let a human die.
4. Let’s get together: A political story about robots being used as terrorists. Showcases one of the biggest fears of humanoid terrorists.
5. Satisfaction guaranteed: One of the most complex stories of this volume. Deals with human emotions such as jealousy, envy and a feeling of low confidence, and how this interfaces with the First law.
6. Risk: About how the human mind can still be a much better instrument to deal with uncertainty and complexity rather than even the most complex positronic brain.
7. Lenny: About the maternal instinct in even the most seemingly hard-boiled scientist can come about when dealing with an under-developed robot.
8. Galley slave: A story which deals with the fear in a human about the advent of robotics and how this could totally destroy human creativity in a slow and gradual way.
The last 4 stories also had the character of Dr. Susan Calvin, whom Asimov used as a representative of the robopshycologist, the head in that area for US Robotics, and a pioneer in the development of robots.

If there are 2 things that Arthur C Clarke will be most famous for, my guess would be for his visionary work, including the concept of a geo-stationary satellite (most famously used to position communications satellites) and for his creation of the best seller 2001: A space Odyssey and its sequels (2010, 2061, and 3001). These were created for and along with an incredible movie of the same name by Stanley Kubrick. Together, this book, and the novel both captured the fascination with space (and its dangers), along with a fear of what an advanced computer (H.A.L) can do (somewhat similar to the fear of sharks that got positively entrenched with the movie Jaws).
Both the book and the screenplay for the movie went hand in hand, and were based on the short story ‘The Sentinel’ written by Arthur C Clarke in 1950. The novel was an important milestone in the history of science fiction, combining elements of man’s historical development, delves into development of space travel and the problems of differential gravity, aliens and the thought that there is a master race that kick-started human development, and then how mankind may not have worked out all the issues related to intelligent computers.

The book starts from an age long long ago (3 million years ago) when there were humanoid races in Africa. They managed to survive, only just, getting fruits and the like, and not knowing how to hunt. They had short life spans, and did not have either the feelings of attachment to each other, and would not have been able to do much either. They were at the mercy of wild beasts, with no instruments with which to defend themselves. And then arrives a rectangular black monolith that starts to delve into their minds, developing their minds. They learn how to develop tools from the natural materials at hand such as rocks and the sharp teeth of wild animals. And then they develop the thought of being able to even fight back against the wild animals that threaten them; and most important, get meat from the wild beasts roaming around them. Humanity gets kick-started, getting into a period of development that leads to us.
Cut to the present age. Humanity has started exploration on the moon, and there they discover something that astounds them. A sheer black monolith has been discovered underground in the moon, in a sector that the US controls, and the eminent Dr. Heywood Floyd is sent to the moon to do further investigations and help the scientists over there. He is told that they have discovered a magnetic disturbance in a site now called Tycho Magnetic Anomaly-One (TMA-1), and they discovered the monolith underground. It is clear that this is not a natural creation, and was actually created 3 million years ago, so this has to be aliens.
Soon, the lunar sunlight hits them, and the monolith, exposed to sunlight for the first time in 3 million years, sends a strong radio signal out that reaches the far extent of the solar system. Switch to the next episode in the book. A ship Discovery One carrying 5 astronauts and an advanced computer HAL 9000 is on its way to Saturn on an exploration mission. 3 of those astronauts are in a state of hibernation, and the remaining 2, Frank Poole and David Bowman, are the ones who are the ones who are supposed to be in charge of the ship (or more likely, be secondary advisors to HAL who can run the ship totally on its own).
The HAL 9000 is an advanced computer, but its designers had never thought about wondering about the impact of the orders it had been given to the intelligent brain. HAL had been given orders to conceal the real knowledge about its mission to both Poole and Bowman (to explore Japetus, the 3rd largest moon of Saturn, the destination of the radio signal from the monolith on the moon), and this was conflicting with its other orders to report all the information fully. This was causing a conflict, and in these strained times, when it felt threatened with termination, it actually decides to kill the astronauts.
So, first it kills Poole by reporting one of the critical AE35 units as malfunctioning twice, and then when Poole goes to investigate, killing him with his own space pod. Then when Bowman threatens it with shut-down, it opens the airlock of the spacecraft to the pressure of the vacuum. Eventually, Bowman gets to an emergency shelter, and then retakes control of the spacecraft by shutting down the circuits of the HAl 9000 computer. He also buries the 3 hibernating astronauts in space, and decides to complete the mission on his own control.
He reaches Japetus with a lot of help from mission control, and discovers a black monolith on the surface. While reporting all this to mission control, he decides to approach Japetus using his space pod, and when almost there, before the pod reaches the monolith, he sends out a final signal ‘The thing’s hollow — it goes on forever — and — oh my God! — it’s full of stars!’
Bowman goes through an extra-ordinary journey, realizing that the monolith is a giant switching system, similar to a ‘Grand Central Station’ of the universe. He sees things that he never thought that he would see, while in a protective shield that saves him from the surrounding regions (including a very close red sun). As he finally sleeps, his mind and memories are drained from his body, becoming a new immortal entity that can travel through space, a Star Child. Bowman now returns to the Solar System and Earth, and is now a very powerful entity, but unsure of what to do - something that he will eventually figure out.

Airframe is an interesting novel by Michael Crichton. It starts out with a normal flight returning back to Denver from Hong Kong when suddenly the whole plane starts to go haywire. The plane starts rapidly going out of control, and everything inside moves very rapidly, with passengers getting bounced around. And the plane declares a emergency off the California coast, and makes a rapid landing. A pretty horrific event. This starts the whole novel.
A typical event like this, which results in injuries and deaths to passengers will get investigated to the last bit of detail; after all, if there is a problem inside the type of plane, it needs to be found out so that the same thing can be avoided on other planes with other airlines. Part of the people who get affected by such an accident are the plane manufacturers, Norton Aircraft. They have to quickly figure out what went wrong, both to avoid scaring other airlines and to satisfy other stakeholders such as the media, shareholders, etc.

The person central to this novel is Casey Singleton, a divorced single mother who is currently the Quality Assurance Representative on the Incident Review team (the team who actually does these sort of investigations) at Norton Aircraft. She will also be the press spokesperson, a high pressure job. Unfortunately, for the investigating team, there are some constraints;
- The flight crew has already left the country
- There is a probable deal with the Chinese airlines for 50 aircraft, so this incident needs to be investigated accurately within a very short time
- The union has heard rumours about a vital transfer of technology to China, and is beginning to get hostile
AS the investigations start, Casey soon discovers that not everything is as it seems to be, and she could very well be the scapegoat. She also has to balance being a single mother on top of everything else. She is also getting attacked by a mediaperson out to get some sensational stuff. DOes she manage to do a good job and uncover the truth ?

The last review was the Volume 1 of this collection. This is the concluding review, taking on the stories in Volume 2 of this series. There are some great stories in this collection as well, and let’s get started on reading them.
Asimov has an incredible novel called ‘Nightfall’, about a society, not very advanced, that has 6 suns all around it, and does not know darkness. It’s scientists find out that the society has followed an unusual pattern, with society dying and taking rebirth every 2500 years, and almost at the same time, they discover the law of gravitation, and find that the 6 suns actually all go into an eclipse once every 2500 years, and the time for that is approaching. This society cannot stand darkness, and when the suns are all away, setting fire to society is the only response from the crazed crowd. Nightfall was developed from a short story, and this story is there in this Volume of short stories.
There are some very interesting stories - some stories about interaction with alien species such as ‘Green Patches’ - probably a form of precursor to the single super-organism concept used in his later novels; there is another moving story about conflict with an alien species in the story ‘Hostess’ - in fact, this is about a parasitic organism, ‘Breeds there a man’ is more about humanity being a lab species for a super species, C-chute is about the conflict with another species and the disparate group of people who get caught in this conflict, ‘In a good cause’ is a classic story where the focus is on inevitable conflict with another species and the different ways of getting humanity to focus on this conflict. ‘What is this thing called love’ is a humourous take at some of the same concepts.
‘What if’ deals with some what if scenarios in a relationship, and is a pretty intersting story, ‘The Ugly little boy’ is a story about the passion of motherhood and what it can make a person do, ‘Sally’ is an intersting story about a sort of robotics and how it can eventually seem scary, the same with ‘Nobody here but -’, ‘Its such a beautiful day’ is a great story about the wanting to escape from a closed society even when it is very comfortable. ‘Strikebreaker’ is a very moving story about the discrimination in a closed society and how they can make humanity veer off its basic sense of right and wrong,
In this second volume, Asimov was moving more towards a model of more conflict with other species, where eventually humans will strove to move into other worlds, and conflict is inevitable. It is possible that the basic nature of humanity being of a state of independence of thought, the possibility of humanity getting split is also possible.

Isaac Asimov is famous for his visionary science fiction works such as the Foundation series that take on a future galaxy side humanity and its search for peace and order as well as progress, and for his Robotic laws that seem like natural constraints on the actions of robotics experts. Besides these however, Asimov also wrote a number of short stories, and they find place in the 2 Volume Short Stories collection. This article takes on the first volume of this collection; the stories are an incredible mix of societal issues, future trends, and so on. There are some very interesting stories in this collection, and some that were somewhat not so interesting to me.
The best story of this collection, and one that appeals to me the most, is a story called ‘The Last Question’. This is a story that takes on a question, moves it along the ages, never answering it, while projecting the technological advances in the ages that follow until you end up in an age ten trillion years in the future, when the entire universe is dying; and then you get the story of the creation mixed up in this answer ‘Let there be light’. This story, while being a pretty short story, and without much complexity, is about the best blend of science and religion that I have seen.
There are numerous other stories that are particularly interesting stories, with the first one, ‘The Dead Past’, being a very direct reminder about the dangers of tinkering with some things that should not have happened, such as creating a machine capable of looking into the past. ‘Franchise’ talks about a future dealing with ability of machines to interfere in the political process that seems like fantasy, but it could have seemed realistic at some point of time. ‘Gimmicks 3′ is a delightful story about dealing with having sold your soul, and the way to get around that. ‘Kid Stuff’ is another interesting story about dealing with non-human creatures.
Some of the stories are more complicated such as ‘The living space’ about alternate probability patterns of existence. And we do have stories related to robotics, ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ is a very interesting story dealing with robotics and human interactions, including the natures of self-confidence and jealousy. ‘Hell-Fire’ is a very short story about the dangers of atomic weapons, similary ‘The Last Thump’ is about the dangers arising from atomic weapons. ‘Jokester’ is a story that is very worrying, dealing with the problems about the existence of jokes and whether they are just a lab experiment. ‘Profession’ is a very moving story dealing with the need for future societies to encourage people to have new ideas for development of society; one reads this story, looks at the present, and is very happy that our society did not develop in such a manner (I would seriously recommend that this should be a story that should be part of general reading).
There are other stories such as detective story that would not be out of place in today’s stories - “I’m in Marsport without Hilda”. Asimov also wrote a few stories on the innate nature of humanity to fight wars and yet maintain their overall nature of independence, such as ‘The Gentle Vultures’. Asimov also could not really conceptualize the age of the personal computer, imaging the existence of centralized massive computing resources, and in the midst of this single large computer of his called ‘Multivac’, he wrote a story about the stress of all the troubles of the world on this computer, and the incredible urge of the computer to terminate itself, called ‘All the troubles of this world’. The story ends in this line, ‘I want to die’.

Movies that are based on science are sometimes successful (take Spielberg’s movies - Close Encounters.., ET, Back to the Future, etc), but many more are unsuccessful. All of these movies portray science as not very hostile, and then came in the hard science fiction movies, with Aliens and The Terminator being movies that were more action oriented, less warm and fuzzy, and very successful. For example, The Terminator cost around $6.5 million to make, and earned around $78 million worldwide. It was a critical success as well, and set the stage for sequels to be made. The movie also played a big part in making Arnold Schwarzenegger that super-star that he became.

The irony around this is that Schwarzenegger was not the first choice for the role, the role of the terminator was initially envisaged to be a small person, not particularly unremarkable. Schwarzenegger was first offered the role of the human from the future, but there was a realization that Schwarzenegger was better suited for the role of the terminator, and that automatically made the role of the terminator to be a big muscular man.
The movie is based on the concept of a future where the machines rule and the humans are fighting back, led by a brave and great hero, John Connor. The machines are able to plan a great deal, including creating robots with living tissue over a metal skeleton (cyborg) in order to better infiltrate the rebel humans, but are unable to score a clear victory. And then the machine leader, the intelligent network Skynet, thinks of a diabolical plan (although would be apparent to anybody in the age of time travel). A cyborg is sent back to 1984 to kill the mother of the rebel leader, Sarah Connor (based in Los Angeles). The humans are able to also send back a rebel soldier, Kyle Reese, to try and protect her.
And thus start the action. The cyborg is a robot, it cannot be reasoned with, it cannot be destroyed with small arms fire, and is ruthless. The robot starts with the phone book, where 3 Sarah Connors are listed. It kills the first 2, and is hunting for the third. When he is trying to kill the third, she is protected by Kyle, who explains his mission and who the cyborg actually is. He can only use current machinery since time travel did not allow him to get back superior weapons, a handicap against the cyborg, aka the Terminator.
When the terminator attacks again, there is a chase, where they are arrested. Typically, the police see a number of weirdos every day, and if you start to spin a story about a robot from the future trying to kill, then it is unlikely that you will be believed, especially if being examined by a shrink. And so their story is not believed. The terminator arrives at the police station and asks for Sarah and Kyle, but is thwarted. Then comes an epic one liner, “I’ll be back !”, and so he does, attaching the police station with a powerful vehicle.
A full scale attack on a police station ? The police fight back, but against a terminator incapable of being killed by their weapons, useless. The terminator kills 17 policeman, but Reese manages to escape with Sarah. They try to hide at a motel where Reese shows Sarah how to make pipe bombs. The scene turns a bit romantic, no doubt furthered by the close escape from the terminator, and they make love (ending up conceiving the future leader, John).
The Terminator manages to track them down, and the situation is now near the end-game. Reese is wounded in the attack, but are able to attack the terminator with a bomb, causing extensive damage to its metal skeleton. However, even the remaining shell of the skeleton is after them, and they escape into a factory. Reese manages to destroy the legs of the Terminator, but at the cost of his own life. It is Sarah who finally destroys the upper part of the skeleton in a machine press, where finally the terminator is killed / terminated / made inactive.
The movie ends with scenes showing Sarah preparing for the future, pregnant with Reese’s son (who will become John), traveling in Mexico, staring into an uncertain future.
The movie has a big cycle around time that could confuse you if you started thinking around it. The man who will save the rebel humans is John Connor, son of Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese. Reese in turn is a man from the future, who only came into Sarah’s life because he was sent back by John. This is a cycle, with no start and end.

Some years back, the quest to make limitless energy from the concept of cold fusion seemed like the answer to our energy ills; it was propounded as the next frontier in research - unfortunately, the entire research imploded in a drama of falsehood and accusations. The Saint, use the theme of cold fusion as the central scientific thread running through the movie. However, the movie is more than that. It gives the 2 main characters of Val Kilmer and Elizabeth Shue a good platform to display their acting abilities, and I liked Val Kilmer in this role.
The Saint is not a new concept, being based on the main characters of Simon Templar in the series of books (created in 1928) by Leslie Charteris; these books were published under the series ‘The Saint’. These series finally ended in 1983, and also found their way into multiple movies, a radio series of the 1940’s, a British television series starring Roger Moore, and others.

In a slight deviation from the original, this movie does not have the hero claiming to be the character from the book, but the name is instead combined from 2 names, Simon from Simon Magus, and Templar from the Knights Templar, a medieval sect of warriors. The movie also had an interesting twist; in the original version, the female lead, Dr. Emma Russell is killed and Simon Templar goes back to do battle, to avenge her, leading to a final climatic battle with guns, tanks, exploding oil, and so on. However, test audiences did not like this ending, and the movie ending had to be changed drastically, ending in the current form.
The movie has a fair amount of adventure and action, with some amount of unbelievability. To be able to get into the Russian President’s bedroom, bypassing his entire security, and that too without much external support seems somewhat difficult, but the Saint managed it without too much effort.
The movie is essentially about the scientific efforts of Dr. Emma Russell, who is developing the formula for cold fusion, and has achieved some success in it. On the other hand, there is Simon, who has been tormenting the British police with his various heists, committed under different names (each name being that of a different saint). He has one final heist left so that he can reach the $50 million mark. This comes to him in the form of a Russian oligarch, Ivan Tretiak, who wants to get the Presidency of the Russian Federation, and wants to hire The Saint to steal it. After some hesitation, when threatened with the death of Dr. Emma, Simon agrees to do it.
He woos Dr. Emma, steals it and then turns it overs to Ivan. It is however incomplete. In the meantime, Dr. Emma comes to Moscow after him; and Tretiak is now after both of them.
The action gets more heated up, and leads to the Russian President’s bedroom where Simon bursts in, and then Tretiak and his son comes in to capture both of them. Tretiak plans to expose the President’s wasteful expenditure in buying such a formula in a show trial. However, during this process, the missing part of the formula is released, and the experiment is shown to be a grand success. The President quickly resumes power. There is a final tease scene where The Saint shows himself to British police, and then meets Dr. Emma.